Abstract

Background

Including children in food preparation activities has long been recommended as a method
to encourage children's consumption, but has not been evaluated. Goal setting is also
a common component of behavior change programs. This study assessed the impact of
attaining goals to prepare fruit-juice or vegetable recipes on student fruit and vegetable
consumption as part of a 10-week fruit and vegetable intervention for fourth grade
students.

Methods

At six of the 10 sessions, students (n = 671) selected a fruit-juice or vegetable
recipe to prepare at home before the next session. Students returned parent-signed
notes reporting their child's goal attainment. Baseline and post consumption were
assessed with up to four days of dietary recalls. Analyses included regression models
predicting post consumption from the number of fruit-juice or vegetable recipe preparation
goals attained, controlling for baseline consumption.

Results

In general, girls and Hispanic students achieved the most recipe preparation goals.
For students with highest baseline fruit-juice consumption, post fruit-juice consumption
was higher by about 1.0 serving for those achieving 2 or 3 fruit-juice recipe preparation
goals. Post vegetable consumption was highest for students reporting the highest baseline
vegetable consumption and who achieved two or three vegetable recipe preparation goals.
In general, recipe goal setting was a useful procedure primarily for those with high
baseline consumption.

Conclusion

This is one of the first reports demonstrating that home recipe preparation was correlated
with dietary change among children.